“I picked up what was left of the dreeners and walked over to the fence.  That field was just sowed, as you might say, with clams.  If they ever sprouted ’twould make a tip-top codfish pasture.

“‘You see,’ says Allie, talking to Barbara; ’the gov’nor told me he’d been plagued with trespassers, so I thought I’d give ’em a lesson.  But neighbors, when they’re scarce as ours are, ought to be friends.  Don’t you think so, Miss—?  Er—­Nickerson,’ says he, ‘introduce me to our other neighbor.’

“So I had to do it, though I didn’t want to.  He turned loose some soft soap about not realizing afore what a beautiful place the Cape was.  I thought ’twas time to go.

“‘But Miss Saunders hasn’t answered my question yet,’ says Allie.  ‘Don’t you think neighbors ought to be friends, Miss Saunders?’

“Barbara blushed and laughed and said she guessed they had.  Then she walked away.  I started to follow, but Allie stopped me.

“‘Look here, Nickerson,’ says he.  ’I let you off this time, but don’t try it again; do you hear?’

“‘I hear,’ says I.  ’You and that hyena of yours have had all the fun this morning.  Some day, maybe, the boot’ll be on t’other leg.’

“Barbara was waiting for me.  We walked on together without speaking for a minute.  Then I says, to myself like:  ’So that’s old man Davidson’s son, is it?  Well, he’s the prize peach in the crate, he is!’

“Barbara was thinking, too.  ‘He’s very nice looking, isn’t he?’ says she.  ’Twas what you’d expect a girl to say, but I hated to hear her say it.  I went home and marked a big chalk-mark on the inside of my shanty door, signifying that I had a debt so pay some time or other.

“So that’s how I got acquainted with Allie V. P. Davidson.  And, what’s full as important, that’s how he got acquainted with Barbara Saunders.

“Shutting an innocent canary-bird up in the same room with a healthy cat is a more or less risky proposition for the bird.  Same way, if you take a pretty country girl who’s been to sea with her dad most of the time and tied to the apron-strings of a deef old aunt in a house three miles from nowhere—­you take that girl, I say, and then fetch along, as next-door neighbor, a good-looking young shark like Allie, with a hogshead of money and a blame sight too much experience, and that’s a risky proposition for the girl.

“Allie played his cards well; he’d set into a good many similar games afore, I judge.  He begun by doing little favors for Phoebe Ann—­she was the deef aunt I mentioned—­and ’twa’n’t long afore he was as solid with the old lady as a kedge-anchor.  He had a way of dropping into the Saunders house for a drink of water or a slab of ‘that delicious apple-pie,’ and with every drop he got better acquainted with Barbara.  Cap’n Eben was on a v’yage to Buenos Ayres and wouldn’t be home till fall, ’twa’n’t likely.